Previous
Alcohol Abuse - Is Your Partner An Alcoholic?
Added: (Thu Jul 24 2008)
Being able to recognize if your spouse is an alcoholic can be difficult in many ways. Understanding your partners drinking habits and your own possible role as an enabler can be as stressful to your emotional well-being as your partners alcoholism.
So anyway, the first signs to look out for are to found in a regular drinking pattern. You should be asking yourself things like, is drinking a daily habit or is it just a weekend thing? Do they grab out for a drink after an earful from the kids? or Do they blame regular drinking spouts on stress related incidents?
Alcoholics in general tend to always come up with the same excuses for an excessive drinking pattern. A partner who just has the odd drink socially is not on par with one who always visits the pub regularly after work for a relaxing drink. If your partner falls into the latter category then I am afraid that he has become dependent on alcohol to a certain degree.
Another common ground feature amongst alcoholics is that they will always lay the blame on somebody else for their problems. Either their boss gets under their skin, their wife's a nag or money (or the lack of it) are just some of the common causes. The outcome tends to be to just drink those problems away instead of dealing with them, so my question to you is..."Does your spouse put the blame on others for his or her perceived problems?"
One of the sadder aspects of this disease is how it affects the whole family in general, as an alcoholic will avoid all his family commitments. If you feel that the financial burden is falling upon you and that your partner is not responding, then should just try and work out how much of the family budget is being diverted to alcohol.
It really doesn't matter whether you have read an article or seen a statistical survey as the answer to all of these questions will always be an affirmative one, meaning an alcoholic is present within the family. One difficulty arising from this subject is that each case can be different and you don't need to just look at quantity but also at resulting behaviour problems due to alcohol intake. There is a solution to this but the first step is for the two of you to sit down and start to talk about the problem.
The only comforting fact to come out of this really is that there are a lot more people out there in the same boat as you are and that this can be sorted out through their support and guidance. A great way to get started is by looking at the comments made by these people which can be found on the stopDrinkingAdvice.org blog and You will soon realise that you are not alone on this quest and that help is on the way.
Discover how to Stop Drinking Alcohol At http://www.stopdrinkingadvice.org/guide written by Ed Philips and Get Free Advice to help you Quit Alcohol Today.